Broken Mirrors
by Semblance of Sanity
Summary: "Nothing gold can stay..." With all the kids at Hogwarts, Ron and Hermione feel that they've lost their love; so focused on the children all those years, they forgot about each other. Ron/Hermione
1. Broken Heart

**Written for the Random Quotes Challenge, using all three of my prompts:**

**"So dawn goes down to day. / Nothing gold can stay." - Robert Frost, Nothing gold can stay**

**"The music in my heart I bore, / Long after it was heard no more." - William Wordsworth, The Solitary Reaper**

**"There is no glory in illness. There is no meaning to it. There is no honour in dying of." - John Green, The Fault In Our Stars**

* * *

The mirror was cracked down the right side, jagged and missing a chunk. He remembered that fight. Neither of them had ever gotten around to fixing it, and frankly, he didn't remember how. Hermione was the expert anyway.

He frowned at himself in the mirror.

Bloody hell, when had he gotten so old?

"Ronald Weasley, I _will_ leave without you!" Hermione shouted from downstairs. Ron sighed, giving up on the tie.

"Coming!" he shouted back, running his hand through his hair once more before heading to the front door. She frowned darkly at him, and he wanted to scream, "You knew I'm never on time when you married me so piss off!" But he didn't, because that would start Another Fight, and he didn't want to be turned into a frog again. They were already late anyway.

So he kept his face neutral as she inspected him. She frowned deeper, flicking her wand at him before stalking out the door. He choked, tugging the tie looser, and hurried after her, shooting his best icy glare at the back of her head.

Stopping just outside the wards, she held out her hand and he stared down at it incomprehensibly, and then back up at her. She rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand.

For a second he remembered what it had been like to be Young and In Love, but then they were turning and when it stopped, her hand was gone.

He hurried after her, toward the music. She didn't say anything, but her jaw was tight, and he knew she wanted to. He rolled his eyes.

"I remember the rules, 'Mione. No magic, no wizards, no calling attention to the fact that I know nothing about Muggles. Be discreet. Use my manners."

She frowned but looked satisfied. "It's for my cousin, Mary, and her fiancé, Aaron. You'll just be doing a lot of sitting quietly, then a lot of eating. It shouldn't be _too_ difficult for you."

"Fantastic."

* * *

She had only had a wizard wedding, inviting her parents, but telling everyone else she had eloped.

She had grown up yearning for the Muggle version, its gentle simplicity, so carefree and beautiful.

That's not to say that her wedding wasn't beautiful. It had been lavender and white - a joke Harry used to laugh at - in late spring. Magic really was beautiful.

Her wedding had been perfect, one of the happiest moments of her life. She could remember every song, and she used to hum to the music in her head, long after the wedding had passed.

She sighed at her husband, who was currently filling his plate to the tipping point at the buffet table. Honestly. Did the man not know how ridiculous he looked?

_She_ felt ridiculous, pretending nothing was wrong for all these people, and then returning home and ignoring each other.

_What had gone wrong?_ she asked herself for the millionth time, and then internally snorted at herself. _See? That's what all these years with Ron has done to you!_

It wasn't just one thing that had gone wrong - it had been a collection of late nights and miscommunication; too much yelling and not enough listening. And now here they were, all the children out of the nest and nothing to say that could fix the huge gap between them.

Other couples were dancing, and she dragged her husband to the floor, ignoring his complaints. "We're supposed to dance," she hissed. He grumbled as he pulled her close. He had gotten acceptable at dancing for their wedding, and Hermione had liked it so much that they took lessons together as newlyweds, until she had gotten pregnant. But they hadn't stopped dancing until...she couldn't remember when they had quit.

Upset, she stopped suddenly, and he almost fell over. He glared at her, and she frowned back, blink away her tears. "You're doing it wrong," she whispered. He gaped at her, shaking his head.

"Hermione, I know how to dance."

"Apparently not," she shot back, knowing it wasn't fair, but not knowing how to stop. His face turned red and he glanced around angrily, gripping her arm tightly and pulling her away from the dance floor.

"What is your problem? You're the one who wanted to dance!" he accused.

"Yes, _dance_! Not bumble about like an idiot!"

His mouth dropped open. "Bumble - Bloody hell, 'Mione." He ran a hand through his hair. "This has got to stop!"

"What does?" she folded her arms across her chest, daring him to say it.

"This! Us!"

"Us? Oh, yes, lovely! Let's just get a divorce and risk ruining our children's grades!" she hissed.

His eyes grew wide. "Divorce? Bloody hell, that's not what I -"

"I don't know why you have to be so difficult! It's not hard to understand!"

"You're impossible to understand!" he insisted.

"And you're an idiot! You miss everything, even if it's right in front of your eyes! All the answers are so obvious!"

He frowned. "You knew I was like this when you married me!" he told her angrily.

"Yes, but I thought I could change you!" she snapped back. He looked as if he had been slapped, and she felt the scorn rising to replace her guilt. "Don't look so shocked! You act like I've changed, but you knew I was like this, too!"

He frowned at her. "Yeah, but you loved me back then."

And she felt her heart being ripped from her chest and smashed into pieces, like the mirror they broke last year and never fixed.

"Excuse me," Ron mumbled, his hand branding her shoulder as he passed. She turned to watch him say goodbye to Mary and Aaron, lying about a call from work. They all laughed loudly, and Hermione felt numb. Ron glanced at her briefly before he left, slinging his jacket over his shoulder and snatching an apple from the table.

She wanted to call out, to make him come back, but her voice had disappeared and her feet were glued to the floor.

He walked further away, into the red sun, growing smaller and less defined until all she could see was light.

"I do love you," she whispered, and felt two tears roll down her cheeks. She stared at the sun for a long while, soaking up the last of its heat, until she was suddenly bumped from behind.

"E'cuse me," a little girl giggled, running over into her daddy's arms. Hermione wanted to throw up, but instead she wiped at her eyes and straightened her dress. There was nothing honorable about dying of a broken heart. Especially at a wedding.

* * *

**I think every marriage has the potential to become like this - Ron/Hermione even moreso, because of their opposing natures - but I am still an avid shipper of these two. I do not like Harmony for the simple fact that their friendship is beautiful, and Harry would be okay if his friends got together, but Ron would not. He was made for Hermione. But yes, they still should have counseling. Or a really long talk. **

**Might continue this story if I get enough good responses, but for now, it is complete. Review? :)**


	2. Shattered Glass

_Wow, guys. Your response to the first chapter has been overwhelming - thank you so much! I am so happy that you all liked it! This took a little longer than I would have liked, due to my fear of 'ruining' the story, if you will. But here it is!_

_For the Random Quotes Challenge, again. Using the prompts:_

_"Daisy chains are pretty fragile, and it turns out that families are too." - Cathy Cassidy, Summer's Dream_

_"An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind." - Mahatma Gandhi_

_Also written for the Sapphire category in the Gemstone competition._

_Special thanks to azura for beta-ing this for me! I wouldn't have posted it without her approval! _

* * *

When they had been Young and In Love, a mere conversation with him was enough to make her feel better after a long day at work - or at least brighten her mood.

He used to bring her lunch and they'd eat outside in the sun, and passerby's would smile at them the way you smiled at young kids with chocolate ice cream on their chins. They'd bicker about evolution or the science of Astrology (or lack of), and she'd always win, but he would smile the entire time.

Sometimes he'd say something purposefully funny, or even something adorably_ idiotic_, but she would laugh and his face would brighten, and they loved each other and both of them knew it.

Now, she came home alone because they had stop coordinating their schedules. He always stayed late now, and she didn't mind.

She turned on the radio and filled the bathtub until it threatened to spill over the moment her toe touched the water. The steam floated up like ghosts of the past, swirling about her, encasing the room and choking up her lungs.

She slipped into the water and let her mind wander back to him...

He didn't know anymore. How could he not know she loved him? She had always loved him - _always _- and you can't just fall out of love when you've loved someone as much as she loved him. How could he not know?

The more she thought about it, the more she wanted to just sink into the water and _breathe_ the heat. Of course he didn't know. She hadn't told him in years - not that he'd said the words either, her defensive side piped up. More miscommunication.

She took a deep breath and submerged her head in the water. The heat was overwhelming, stinging her skin in the most comforting manner. Her heartbeats were magnified and booming; she could hear the creaks and sighs of the house. It was peaceful. She wanted to stay there forever. Her lungs burned and screamed for air, and the heat was prying apart her eyelids, exposing them to the harsh bite of her soap.

She came up with a gasp, water cascading from her hair, and her body refused to get warm again, no matter how deep she sunk in the water.

She wrapped herself in her robe and dried off her hair. She cast a Heating Charm around her room, and brought up some hot chocolate, curling in a corner chair with a blanket and a book.

.

He came home at 1 a.m., fumbling in the dark and swearing when he ran into walls. He let out a screech across the hall, followed by loud thumping, and Hermione glared at her closed door. _Idiot._

The pipes creaked and moaned as they released water, and she returned to her book.

When she next looked up, it was 3 a.m. and the house was silent as death. Her muscles protested as she stood up. She closed her eyes and ran a hand through her hair. She willed her eyes not to, but they jumped to her big, empty bed the minute she opened them.

She sighed and put her book on the nightstand slowly. Her eyes flitted around the lonely room, filled with her things, only her things. Ron was in the guest room across the hall. What were they going to do when the kids came home?

She heaved another sigh and trudged to her dresser, feeling terribly weighed down. She pulled on her pajamas and turned to the mirror to braid her hair.

The broken mirror; cracked and jagged from one of their fights. _Just like us_, she thought wryly. Ron must have replaced hers with the broken one in the hopes that she would fix it, or merely to get back at her for making him go to the wedding.

Anger clawed up inside her chest, grief and hurt bubbling up beside it, but the anger was the harshest, biting and fueling into rage; anger at him, anger at herself, anger at this stupid, broken mirror in its stupid frame and -

"Reducto!"she screamed. And the mirror was reduced to ashes with a flash of blue and the shattering of glass. She collapsed on the floor in a ball, hugging her knees tight to her chest as sobs choked her.

The door flew open and Ron stumbled into the room with his wand at the ready, wearing only boxer shorts and socks. He was squinting in the light, and his hair was standing up at all angles. "What 's it? What's happ'ned?" He slurred, and she laughed, darkly.

"You fool! You can't even see! Who do you think you would defeat in a fight right now?" She pushed herself to her feet, wanting nothing more than to wrap her arms around the bloody idiot and let him tuck her head beneath his chin and stroke her hair and tell her he loved her, but - "Go back to bed, Ronald, before you hurt yourself."

She turned on her heel and started arranging the covers of her bed. She could hear him in the doorway for a while time, uncertain or waiting - for what, she didn't know - but she didn't need him.

"Go to bed, Ron," she repeated, softer this time, because being mad was exhausting and she just didn't have the energy right now.

"You were crying." He sounded uncertain of his duties as Husband But Not Really. She sighed.

"I'm fine. Go to bed."

He sighed behind her, and she heard his heavy footsteps walk away a few moments later.

She echoed his sigh and climbed into bed.

The pile of ashes on the floor mocked her as she searched for peace in a rest that didn't come.

* * *

_*hides shyly* Leave a review and let me know what you thought, please! Did it live up to expectations? Do you still love them as much as I do? _


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